


Running Out of Time (Let’s Stop Running)

by aveyune23



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Battle of Endor, Confessions, F/M, Jyn is a Pathfinder, Kes Dameron is an Ass but also Cupid, Lots of Panic Swearing, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Smut, RebelCaptain May the Fourth Exchange, and Cassian is a Panicked Mess, last minute kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 03:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14535345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aveyune23/pseuds/aveyune23
Summary: He didn't have a lot of time.An impending battle, a realization, and sanctuary in an abandoned storage locker.





	Running Out of Time (Let’s Stop Running)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! I’m so excited to finally reveal myself as the May the Fourth author for carr-crashh-heartss! Of course I worked down to the last minute, but I’m hoping that you love it!
> 
> Prompt: _Reunion, OR “We finally got our happy ending.”_

He didn’t have a lot of time.

He tried to block out the voice in his head that was reading off the massive list of things that could go wrong, but it was insistent -- the words wormed and burrowed their way into the deepest recesses of himself and made his chest tight. He moved through the white halls of the cruiser at as dignified pace as he could manage, reminding himself that running in the absence of an emergency was unbecoming of an officer. Still, he hurried, his barely-restrained feet leading him down the well-worn route as his mind whirled and spun around the possibilities. But it kept settling on one painful and poignant thing:

She would be shipping out soon.

No, he didn’t have a lot of time left, he thought as he walked. He’d only had _four kriffing years_ to do -- what? Something, _anything_ \-- but he had done nothing. Nothing, except treat her like a professional, a most decidedly platonic partner, and pretend like the proximity of her body to his didn’t set his nerves on fire or make his chest cave in with the sheer weight of her -- _her. She._ An overwhelming presence that contained so many deep and wondrous things it seemed silly to label with something so common as a name. But she _was_ a name, a single, resounding word that echoed louder in his heart than the sound of his feet on the durasteel floor --

 _Jyn_ _. JynJynJynJyn --_

Had it been any other day, (“ _Any other fucking day in the galaxy,” he thought bitterly)_ , he would never have begun waxing as poetic as he was now. A part of him that was somehow still on the outside of all of this turmoil was shaking its head in disdain, berating him for acting a fool. He was an officer, she was a subordinate. He had no business thinking of her as he did, but after all they had been through, after all they had survived together — Force, if she knew…

He had to tell her. She could well be dead tomorrow.

They had been debriefed barely an hour ago, but the entire cruiser was buzzing like a hive in preparation for the strike. After the plans had been relayed she had left the room with the other soldiers in her unit -- the ground force, the bloody Pathfinders, the special ops unit that _he had recommended her for_ \-- and he hadn’t been able to catch her to speak to her about -- what? All of it, everything, the entirety of the universe and their place in it? He shook his head and took the next left turn. What in the hells was he talking about?

No, he told himself. He had to be level-headed about this. Matter-of-fact. There was no need for a grand gesture or a long, drawn out confession. He’d never be able to manage it. It was bad enough that the thoughts he’d been having since the debriefing were so intense it was making him sick to his stomach — if he were to go and sputter all of that mess out to _her…_ He swallowed the lump of his gut that had wedged itself in his throat, grit his teeth, and stopped in front of the door to the women’s barracks. He raised his hand to open the door and -- froze.

_Fuck._

His heart was pounding away in his chest like it was trying to escape his ribcage, and the nerves in his legs were jumping with the same intent. He wanted to run like hell. It was absurd, and nervous laughter threatened to burst from his mouth, but his lips were pursed together so tight in grim determination that there was no chance even a breath could get through.

Oh, right. _Breathe._

He sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a controlled exhale, wanting to kick himself for acting so --

_Oh for Force sake, Andor, just do it._

Before he could convince himself otherwise, he slapped his palm on the lock with a little more force than was probably necessary, and in the few milliseconds it took for the door to slide open his brain came up with a dozen possible outcomes, most of them terrible.

 _You sound like a droid_ , a little voice said, and it sounded suspiciously like the person he was looking for.

The barracks door opened, and he was disappointed (relieved) to find the hall empty. _Of course it would be_ , the voice chided him. _Everyone’s off to blow up another Death Star._

His stomach turned at that, his earlier panic returning tenfold. Where was she? He didn’t have to think hard about it -- his feet were on autopilot again, leading him through _Home I_ to the only other place she could be, the place he should have looked first, the place she always went before a potentially difficult mission.

He’d first found her in Storage Locker 413B shortly after they’d abandoned Yavin IV. She had disappeared in the chaos of leaving, and no one knew where she had gone. No one had seen her since before the evacuation. He remembered how hurt he had been, thinking that she had left for good, but in looking, the evidence didn’t add up -- there were no missing ships in the hangar, no jettisoned escape pods, not even missing supplies. He had decided to splice into the security camera archives to see if she’d at least been glimpsed running away (he wouldn’t believe she had run until he _saw it_ ), but nothing came of it until he noticed a glitch in one of the records. The footage from a camera in a dark and deserted hallway in the bowels of the cruiser was playing on a loop. Curious, he’d picked apart the code to fix it, and ended up finding Storage Locker 413B -- and Jyn -- in the process.

“Storage Locker 413B” was really just a glorified custodial closet -- a ten by ten space full of broken cleaning droids and their various components -- but it was far from the main hub of the cruiser, and based on the fact that no one had thought it odd that the security footage always showed an empty hallway, it was a low-traffic ( _“No traffic,” he’d thought as he’d eyed the dust and flickering lights)_ area. Not a bad spot, really, given the circumstances. He’d knocked on the door but hadn’t really expected her to answer, so he had opened it carefully, braced himself for an attack, but none had come. Instead he’d found her sitting in the corner of the closet in the dark, curled in on herself, clutching her kyber crystal necklace with white knuckles and red eyes, and if he hadn’t been lost before, he was after that.

She had let him in but hadn’t said anything, and he hadn’t pushed her. He had simply asked if he could sit down next to her, and she had nodded, and when his side pressed against hers, she had let out a deep breath in a shuddering sigh and put her cheek to his shoulder, and they sat that way for minutes, or hours, or perhaps days. Time, they came to discover in the following years, didn’t exist in Storage Locker 413B. Jyn had gone there because it was quiet, she had told him. It was somehow separate from everything else, from the Alliance, from her role in the War, from her past. The dark and the silence made her feel safe, gave her peace.

She hadn’t protested when he eventually asked her if she wanted to go back upstairs, and when they walked out of the storage locker she seemed to come back to herself, turned back into the fiery and confident Jyn Erso that he had come to know and respect. After that day she joined the Alliance officially, made a name for herself, contributed to the Cause that she used to hate so fiercely. She blossomed as a Rebel, and he was a proud witness to it.

But before every mission, she would disappear, and he would find her in Storage Locker 413B, clutching her kyber crystal in the dark and quiet, looking for peace before she went out to reign fire down on the Empire.

His feet led him down the halls, to the lifts, down down down to the lower levels of the cruiser, until he was in that dimly lit hallway, the third door on the left from a right off the lift --

She was right where he thought she would be, sitting on the lowest shelf in the corner of the locker, her fingers wrapped tight around the crystal on her necklace, eyes closed even though the space was pitch black. He was afraid to interrupt her thoughts, but when he stepped inside her eyes opened and she smiled at him, and _oh Force_ , if she would just smile at him like that every day for the rest of his life…

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey. May I turn on the light?”

She nodded and he flipped the switch, then went to sit next to her, his knee bumping hers in the cramped space. She shifted a bit to make more room, and they settled into silence. They normally didn’t speak much down here, the locker somewhat of a sanctuary that made words unnecessary. This time, though, he needed to speak. His mind was still rushing and spinning around what he had wanted to tell her, and he opened his mouth to begin, but nothing came out.

_Get it together, Andor._

Thankfully, she started speaking first.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft. She was looking down at her hands. He noticed that her cuticles were red and in some places bleeding. He frowned. She only did that when she was really nervous.

“Could be,” he replied, trying to keep his voice light, but she turned her head to look up at him at his words. Her eyes were narrowed. He recognized the look -- she was trying to figure him out, to see if he was lying. But she knew better than that by now. He hadn’t lied to her in years.

Well, at least not about _most_ things.

“Cassian…” she said, and the tone was both a warning and a question. She wanted him to be honest with her. Especially right now. And he supposed that he should be, considering the situation. That’s what he’d come down here to do anyway, right? But now that he was faced with it, he was quaking in his boots.

He thought about just saying _to hell with it_ and kissing her, but he knew she wouldn’t like that. She also wouldn’t like it if he came out and said the words that had been ringing in his head since that damned beach four years ago. But he didn’t have a lot of time left.

He’d never considered himself given to grand gestures, but “desperate times” and all that…

He steeled his jaw and stepped over the edge.

“Jyn,” he began, clenching his fists before reaching out to carefully take one of her hands into one of his. She wasn’t phased by this gesture -- they’d held hands before, usually when death seemed imminent, so to her it probably seemed normal. But he’d never stroked her knuckles with his thumb before, and when his calluses caught on her healing scabs she gasped. It was  the smallest and softest sound, and it reverberated through his chest like a bell.

She didn’t pull away, and he took a deep breath.

“I --”

His mouth had opened, but then it closed again. Oh hells, how was he supposed to do this?

“Cassian, are you alright?” Her brows were drawn down in concern, and he thought about laughing at the absurdity of it all. She was about to ship out to deal a massive and hopefully final blow to the Empire, and there he was holding her hand amongst piles of broken mouse droids, floundering at trying to confess his love for her.

“I just wanted to tell you --”

She was looking up at him with those eyes of hers, the ones that reminded him of a forest he’d once walked through: green like the lush moss that had clung to the rocks and the trunks of the tallest trees he’d ever seen. The light in the storage locker didn’t do them justice, but he knew them all the same, could see them in his mind, and he could tell despite the bad light that they were soft now and full of what someone might call affection. He’d seen the look before, but only ever in Storage Locker 413B, where she felt safe enough to show it. That look made him brave.

“When this is over --”

_\-- No, that’s not right --_

“When you come back --”

_\-- Better._

“When you get back from this mission --”

Her brows were drawn together again, this time in confusion at his stuttering. Panic was starting to set in. He was fucking this up. How? How was he supposed to tell her?

“Be safe, okay?” he said in a rush, gripping her hand in his. “I -- I have something to tell you when you get back.”

_Coward!_

But she was frowning at him, and he went to pull his hands away, because _shit_ , she was getting angry. She _knew_ , she _knew he was lying_ \--

“Why can’t you tell me now?” she asked. Her tone was sharp, and her fingers dug into his to keep him from pulling away, and his heart was pounding like a trip hammer in his chest.

 _Shit,_ it cried. _Shit shit shit--_

“I might --” she began, and then, clinging to his hand, she looked up at him with such steel in her eyes it made his breath come short. “Cassian, this could be it. I -- I might not come back.” She took a deep breath and looked down at their hands. Her thumb ran across his knuckles, repeating his earlier gesture, and her voice was soft when she said, “If you have something to say, you need to say it now. Because this --” She swallowed. “ --It might be all we have.”

His heart shattered into a thousand pieces in his chest, and _oh Force_ , she was probably right, and _oh hells,_ why? Why had he waited so long? Too long. He’d wasted so much time, and now -- was there even any time left? Moments, breaths were all they had. And he decided then and there that he would no longer waste them.

He stopped thinking about all of the ways he could fuck it up ( _he’d done enough of that already_ ), and took a deep breath, and brought his hand to her cheek. He could have imagined that she leaned into his palm, but his heart sang when her eyes fluttered closed and she breathed a small sigh, and _Force let me do right by her --_

He didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t the time. He sent a prayer up to the universe, didn’t wait for an answer, and leaned down to press his mouth to hers.

He pulled away almost immediately, because _fuck_ , he hadn’t asked, he hadn’t been sure that that’s what she had wanted, but she had opened her eyes and looked up at him with a surprised “oh” on her lips and then _oh,_ she took his face in her hands and kissed him -- she _kissed_ him, her fingers digging into the hair at the nape of his neck and her mouth warm and sweet and _Force,_ let him die right there because _Jyn Erso_ was kissing him like the world would end if she didn’t and --

He pulled away to breathe, sucking in a great lungful of air as his mind reeled. Her lips were swollen and she looked like a dream and _Force she was shipping out_ and --

“Jyn,” he gasped, his fingers tucked just beneath the knot of her hair at the base of her neck. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his, and he had a million things to say, oh why had he waited so long, too long --

The chrono on her wrist began to ring, and they jumped apart. She fumbled to silence it, and they looked at each other with wide eyes, suddenly shy, but then she leaned forward again and brushed his unruly hair behind his ear, let her fingers trail down his cheek and across his jaw, and he sighed. She leaned in, pressed her forehead to his and shared his breath. The words he’d practiced were there on his lips, ready and waiting --

“I have to go,” she breathed against his mouth, and it broke his heart to hear her say it. _No,_ it raged in his chest. _More time,_ it cried. There had to be something he could do, anything -- but no, she was moving away, shifting to stand. He’d planned and rehearsed over and over for what he was going to say in this moment, but it all fell apart at his feet when she stood up and made to leave. He caught her arm and stood up, too, and pulled her into an embrace so tight he was certain he would break her in two, but she clung to him like he to her, and _oh…_

“Come back to me,” he murmured into her hair, giving her the only thing his heart could cry.

Her arms tightened around him, and then she pulled away enough to cup his cheek in her hand and look at him with those green, green forest eyes, and said, “Always.”

And she turned and left Storage Locker 413B.

He inhaled, let it out, closed his eyes.

And waited.

 

* * *

Kes Dameron was being obnoxious, as usual.

“I’m gonna make love to my wife,” he kept saying, as if he hadn’t said it a dozen other times since they’d finally left the forest moon’s surface. The others had long since tuned his rambling out -- he’d indulged himself perhaps a little too heavily in the natives’ home brew.  And while this was also likely the case for the rest of the squadron, most of them had enough sense to keep their mouths shut about it. But Kes -- it was always Kes, the troublemaker, the rowdy sergeant who was occasionally more trouble than he was worth but always came out as an exemplary member of the team -- he felt like it was his personal duty to make sure that every member of the Pathfinders squadron celebrated their victory properly.

Unfortunately, Dameron’s idea of a “proper” celebration was to find the nearest breathing lifeform and shag its brains out.

“Mind you,” he had slurred at one point as the shuttle rattled and shook it’s way back to _Home I_ , “I’m at least properly married. The rest of you --” (and he had fixed the rest of the squadron with a hard and mildly lopsided eye) “-- had better behave.”

Someone had sneered that not all of the them were so lucky as to have an Alliance-sanctioned marriage, and Dameron had laughed and deflected as he usually did. But then he had turned to Jyn, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the shuttle staring out the window, and unleashed his diatribe upon her.

“Erso, you’ve got to have someone special waiting back on base, right?”

Jyn rolled her eyes and shifted in her seat. “You’re drunk, Dameron.”

But Kes just laughed and gave her a knowing look. “You and Captain Andor seem pretty close. Sure you don’t have plans for him now that this is all over?”

Jyn glared daggers at him from across the shuttle, but she couldn’t help the heat that flushed her cheeks. Dameron saw it and threw his head back in a loud laugh.

“C’mon, sweetheart, everyone from Command down to Communications knows that the two of you are only ‘one-drink-too-many’ away from finally proclaiming your undying devotion to each other.” He grinned at her with wolf’s teeth. “You can’t tell me that you’re _not_ going to shack up with him when we get back.”

She considered unbuckling her restraining belt to walk over and punch him square in the face, but there was no point. He was drunk. But much to her annoyance, he was hitting a nerve.

She shifted in her seat, trying to tune Dameron out, but he _kept fucking talking._ Force, did he ever shut up?

“He’s handsome enough,” he was saying. “Has that whole ‘brooding spy’ thing going for him, which I hear all the ladies love.” Kes narrowed his eyes at her, mouth quirked in consideration. “But that’s not your thing, is it, Erso?”

“Shove off, Dameron,” Jyn snapped, but Kes just laughed and kept prodding.

“No, it’s something else,” he continued, lowering his voice. “That whole child soldier thing, that’s what got you, right? Similar childhoods?”

“Kes,” she hissed, her voice dripping with venom. If he went any further with wherever he thought he was going…

But Dameron held up his hands in surrender and shrugged. “Fine. You just want him for his body. I get it. Personally I think he needs to eat a few more protein cubes, but whatever sails your ship --”

“KES!”

The idiot had the gall to cackle. When he had finished with his convulsions, he leaned forward conspiratorially, like he was about to impart some sort of wisdom, and Jyn was enough of an idiot to lean in too.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Dameron stage-whispered.

Jyn rolled her eyes, but nodded and leaned in.

“I need you to fuck him today. If you do, I’m gonna have enough money to build a house. A _house_ , Erso.”

She recoiled in shock, her face twisting into a rage. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she demanded, ignoring that her voice bordered on an enraged squeak.

But Kes just sat back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, saying very matter-of-factly, “Go fuck your man, and I can have a house.”

Her eyes were probably bulging out of her head, but Dameron didn’t say anything more, and so Jyn sat in her seat for the remainder of the flight with her limbs crossed so tight that it would have taken a miracle for anyone but herself to untangle her.

They redocked with _Home I_ and disembarked with much fanfare, but Jyn didn’t stick around. She had searched the crowd but couldn’t find the eyes she’d been looking for, and so she had ducked away as soon as backs were turned and made her way down the halls, her feet leading her down the well-worn route…

As angry as Dameron had made her, he had been right: there was only one person she wanted to see. And she knew exactly where he’d be.

Exhaustion sunk in as she took the lift down down down, and she was in a fog when the doors opened. But her body moved of its own volition, taking her to the right and then stopping in front of the unassuming grey door that had become their haven in the midst of this war --

\-- _It was over._

She wasn’t entirely sure that he would be there, but when the door slid open and the unsteady light of the hall hit his face, a wave of relief crashed over her. She went inside and asked very quietly, “May I turn on the lights?” And when he nodded and she flipped the switch and the single fluorescent bulb flickered to life, she shed her jacket and her helmet and collapsed next to him, the breath going out of her in one long sigh. There was only a moment’s hesitation before his arms went around her, and then he was crushing her to him, his grip tighter than she would have normally born, but _oh_ , if he would only hold her that way forever…

“We won,” she croaked, realizing belatedly that tears were leaking from her eyes. She buried her face in the crook of his neck to stem the flow, but then she felt the small and consistent tremor that was shaking his body, and she pulled away so that she could take his face in her hands and press her forehead to his and murmur, “It’s over, Cassian. _It’s over._ ”

Her words broke something inside of him. His shoulders began to shake, and she felt wetness against her cheeks, and she wrapped her arms around him and murmured small things as he quietly wept with what might have been joy or relief or loss or something in between. It was likely all three and more -- 24 years of his life dedicated to the fight, and it was over. It broke her heart, and she held on tight.

When he pulled away she met his dark eyes and wondered how she had never thought to catalogue the gold in them. She put her hand to his cheek and brushed away the tracks of tears, and his hand came up to hold hers.

“You came back,” he said softly, as though in awe that she was really there.

“I had to,” she said, her lips spreading in a smile. “You said you had something to tell me.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then he laughed, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Right,” he said, smiling sheepishly at her. “Right.”

“What was it?” Her heart was fluttering behind her ribs, wondering what he was about. When he took her hands in his and began peeling her gloves from her fingers, she watched as his expression softened and seemed to look inward. She thought about asking him again, but he looked very serious, so she stayed quiet and let him hold her hands, gasping slightly when his thumbs caught on the new scrapes on her knuckles.

“I want—“ he began, not looking up from their hands. “I want you —“

He didn’t go any further. Jyn frowned and pulled a hand away so that she could touch his chin and pull his gaze back to hers. “You want me —?” she asked, leaving the end of the question open so that he could fill in the blank. But all he did was give her a soft smile.

“That’s it,” he said. “I want you.”

Her heart had been pounding before, but now it stopped.

“You —?”

He cupped her cheek in his palm, tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded. He was looking straight into her with those dark, dark eyes and _oh_ , he was about to kiss her, wasn’t he? She remembered how it had felt to kiss him before, when they had thrown all caution to the wind, thinking she might not make it back. But now… Her heart resumed pounding, and her head began to spin.

“Huh?”

He had spoken, but she’d been so focused on his mouth, thinking about what it might be like to take her time kissing him, that she hadn’t heard him.

He was grinning at her, and he repeated, “May I kiss you?”

“Oh,” she said, her head spinning. “Yes. If you want.”

He nodded. His fingers were curled just there against her jaw, and she closed her eyes, leaning into his touch with a sigh.

“Cassian,” she breathed, and in the split second before his lips met hers, she felt something click into place in her chest and flicker to life. And when he _did_ kiss her -- _oh._

His mouth was soft, hesitant, and she couldn’t help it -- she whimpered, a tiny and pathetic sound that made her want to die from embarrassment but oh hells, this was nothing like their last kiss. That had been rushed and desperate and had raged against their lack of time. This kiss was different -- careful and considerate and _all the the time in the galaxy_. She tried to swallow the sound she’d made, but to her surprise he responded with a sigh of his own, his lips parting just enough that they shared a breath. Her hands found their way to his shoulders and his skimmed down her arms to rest on her waist, and he tilted his head just enough that she could open her mouth to his. Feeling emboldened by the pressure of his fingers on her hips, she darted out a tentative tongue, and when he pressed his back against hers she let out a small moan. Cassian pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his breath heavy. “I didn’t mean to --”

“No,” she told him, feeling the absence of his warmth acutely. “I don’t --” She took a deep breath and gripped his shoulder, her fingers toying with the ends of his hair.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered, terrified of the words even as she said them. Because what if starting again meant they couldn’t stop, even if they tried? What if she never _wanted_ to stop?

“Jyn…”

The small flickering thing in her chest burned brighter at the sound of her name on his lips. She saw their past behind her -- all of the pain, the victories, the small and secret moments that they had shared together here in the darkness of Storage Locker 413B. It took barely a glance forward to see their future laid out before her -- bright and shining and close enough that she could reach out and grasp it in her hands…

“Kiss me,” she told him, “and please don’t stop.”

“Are you sure --?”

She pulled back enough to give him a stern look, but she struggled to maintain it -- her eyes were crinkling and she felt her mouth turn up at the corners as she snapped, “Cassian Andor, it’s taken you four kriffing years to finally come out and tell me how you feel. Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to _do_ something about it?”

His eyes widened in surprise, but then his grip tightened on her hips and his face split in a sly grin. It was a look she had never seen before, something easy and carefree and _happy_ , and it made her stomach flutter.

“Is that a challenge?” he asked, and his voice was pitched so low it was almost a growl. Jyn gasped, and her heart skipped around in her chest for a few seconds before taking a nosedive straight through her belly to her core, where it then proceeded to sit and pound steadily. She had the distinct and sudden urge to laugh. When she thought about it, there didn’t seem to be a reason not to, so she did, high and clear. She almost didn’t recognize the sound.

“What?” Cassian asked her, and she saw that he was grinning from ear to ear, and oh, was this what it was like to be happy?

“Kiss me,” she said to him again, and he didn’t question her this time. He kissed her good and full on the mouth, his hands cradling her head and her hip, and she grinned against his lips and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. And when that wasn’t close enough he tugged her onto his lap and they became a tangle of limbs, her knees on either side of his hips, his arms snaked around her waist, mouths growing hotter, more insistent, teeth sinking into lower lips and grazing pulse points. She gasped when he pressed soft kisses to her chest after he had helped her out of her shirt, and she collapsed in hysterics when his got caught around his elbows and they had to fight to get it over his head as he cursed a dozen ways in Festian. But then it was skin on skin, and _oh_ , _love --_

They managed to move most of the old cleaning droid parts to the side to make enough room to lie down, bumping and bruising and coughing as they stirred up the dust. But he put his jacket down for her, and she pulled him down to her side so that she could kiss him again. Their hands were clumsy and intrepid explorers, cataloguing the unknowns to make maps for future journeys, lingering over valleys and ridges and pausing to take in the small inconsistencies between scar and skin. And when they reached _there_ , he stopped to ask her if she was happy.

“Yes,” she told him. “Yes, because I have you.”

And _oh_ , she needed him closer, she needed him more. Needed his arms around her and his lips on hers, needed, needed, needed all of him, over her and around her and in her, his breath hot on her neck and his voice in her ear --

_\-- love!_

They hadn’t planned on any of it -- surviving the war, falling in love. They had never thought they would live long enough to see the day come when those things were possible. But after, as they lay on the dusty floor of a forgotten storage locker that had inexplicably become their sanctuary, they began to speak of something new, of something they’d never had before: a future. They held it carefully in their joined hands, turning it over, examining the beauty of all its many-faceted sides. What would they do? Where would they go? They spoke of all of it and none -- for once, finally, it could wait. They had the time.

“Oh,” Jyn said as they closed the storage locker door behind them. “I forgot to tell you. Make sure you tell Kes Dameron ‘you’re welcome’ when you see him next.”

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

She grinned up at him and took his hand, pulling him towards the lift.

“We just bought him a house.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As usual, comments are never expected but always appreciated.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @kotaface for drabbles, short fics, assorted ramblings, or just to chat!


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